Parishti Project

Jeremy Bentham once put his mind to designing the perfect prison. What he came up with is called the Panopticon. The design features of his prison enabled a single corrections officer to watch the whole prison:

• prison cells are positioned in a ring around the outside, with a door facing inward;
• the prison yard is at the centre, giving each prison cell a view into the yard; and
• the rotunda at the centre allows corrections officers to watch without being seen.

If prisoners cannot know whether they are being watched, they will behave as though they are being watched at all times.

We rationalize this loss of privacy for convicts based on four principles of sentencing:

• Restraint. Incarceration restrains the ability of dangerous convicts to do dangerous things.
• Restitution. Having taken something (property or safety) from the public, the convict must lose something in exchange.
• Rehabilitation. Having made poor choices, the convict must be rehabilitated to rejoin the public.
• Recidivism. Having been restrained from criminal activity; having made restitution; and been rehabilitated, the convict will be less likely to offend again.

But we have also created panopticons in those public schools that permit school resources officers (SROs) unchecked access to students. Students are not convicts, but schools are a place that they are legally required to attend on a daily basis. And public schools with SRO programs allow:

• warrantless police surveillance of minors,
• without consent of a parent or guardian,
• without benefit of counsel, and 
• without oversight by the courts.

How do we justify subjecting K-12 students to perpetual surveillance we originally designed for convicts?

(...stay tuned. Charter analysis to follow.)